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Sup fellow degens,
It is the jolly season, and we need to talk about the Christmas scam.
It happens every December. The slot providers (Pragmatic, NetEnt, Push Gaming, etc) have stopped innovating. They slap on their games some lazy reskins and call it a day.
The playbook is pretty simple. They take a high-volatility slot that already eats money, drag a JPEG of a Santa hat onto the main character, add sleigh-bell sound effects, snow, and shiny reindeer to trigger your dopamine receptors.
Then they call it a new game.
It's like unwrapping a present and finding something you already have.
Slot providers rely on the dopamine in the air driven by festive blindness. They know that Christmas music makes you spin faster. You ignore variance. You ignore the fact that the RTP is tighter than a chimney in a studio apartment.
So, instead of letting you blindly donate your Christmas bonus to costumed slots, I've done the maths for you.
Here are the Top 5 Christmas Slots, not ranked by holiday cheer, but filtered by the degen lens and how much they will actually pay you.
Number 2’s RTP is actually insane.
Top 5 Christmas Slots
The Smart Pick: Secrets of Christmas (NetEnt)
If you actually care about math and not just some pretty lights, this is the one you should go for. Deadspin and CasinoMeister rank this as a top-tier pick. The bonus round just makes sense.
Secret of Christmas screen
The math: 96.72% RTP. In the slot world, 96.0% is standard, and 94% is scam. Secrets of Christmas is practically charity.
The Vibe: high variance, but the bonus round lets you pick toys to unlock free spins and multipliers.
Christmas Joke: Why is this slot like your in-laws? Because it reveals all of the secrets at the Christmas table. (Okay, in 2026, I will work on the jokes).
The Hottest of 2025: Totally Hot (BGaming)
Turn up the heat in your fireplace, BGaming just dropped a new retro-style called Totally Hot for the 2025 season. It's for fans of classic slots and modern players alike. Every spin is a hybrid between the old and new, but the wallet drain is the same.
Totally Hot screen
The math: 97.21% RTP.
My take: read that again. This RTP is unheard of. For a holiday slot, most providers drop it to around 94% because they know you will play anyway. BGaming is actually giving you a chance to win. If you are reading this, you should head there quickly before they realize their mistake and nerf it.
Classic for Degens: Fat Santa (Push Gaming)
This is a cult classic.
Simple mechanics: Santa eats pies. The more pies he eats, the fatter he gets. The fatter he gets, the more he covers the reels as a Wild symbol.
Santa (the house) gets fat, and you get nothing. The metaphor is staring right at you.
The math: Between 94.15% and 96.45% RTP. That's mid-high volatility.
My take: The “Buy Feature" on this game is legendary. It's one of the few slot games where the bonus feels like a legit way to win and not suicide.
Unusual: Jingle Balls (NoLimit City)
Just like you would expect from NoLimit, this game deviates from the usual Xmas theme. It relies on Grinch, elves, and an unusual-looking Santa.
Jingle Balls offers a solid selection of bonuses and features, including scatter symbols, xSplit Wilds, xNudge Wilds, xWays, and various Spirit Spins models.
The math: RTP of 96.10% and high volatility.
My take: the game promises a max win potential of 12250x the bet. But it's basically a reskin of Remember Gulag. It's perfect for players who want high variance Christmas action with the possibility of hitting the max win using the bonus buy function.
The Fisherman: Christmas Big Bass Bonanza (Pragmatic Play)
A fisherman with a Santa hat? The Big Bass series is one of the most milked franchises in history. It's high volatility where you spin and catch no fish.
It's actually like fishing in the ice. You sit in the cold, nothing happens, and you wonder why you spent money on all your equipment.
The math: RTP is 96.71%
My take: With up to 20 free spins, the festive Christmas theme and graphics pop on the reels. It has a low max win of 2,100x and no unique features. It's perfect for the snowy Christmas atmosphere, but not great if you're looking for something with greater returns.
The Grinch Guide: A Summary
Now that we've looked at the games, you should know that December is the month when casinos make their biggest profit.
You're drunk on eggnog and sentimental about reindeer. Nothing to care much about.
But don't be a statistic.
Play: Totally Hot by BGaming for the 97.21% RTP.
Degen: Fat Santa (Push Gaming) for the Buy Bonus Rush.
Avoid: Anything with “jackpot" in the title. They are usually around 88% RTP, which is high volatility unless you hate your money.
But still…Christmas is the time for giving.
If you play smart, you win presents. If not, you are the present.
TL;DR: Most Christmas slots are lazy "reskins" designed to exploit your nostalgia. This is a list of the top 5 Christmas slots. The best RTP is Totally Hot by BGaming. The Degen Pick is Fat Santa (Push Gaming). Check the RTP files, and don't let the jingle bells distract you from the math.
Stay degen,
Dima
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